Traditionally there have been two basic methods of accommodating the lunch needs of a working person. First, the person is always free to go to a nearby restuarant and, second, is the famous "brown bag lunch". Although the purveyors of progress would have the brown bagger carry a lunch box which is more particularly designed to his specific needs, the brown bag has not so yielded, at least not among white collar workers.
Because of this, a brown bag lunch, whether it be carried in an authentic brown bag, in a purse, or fragmented and stuffed into the various pockets of a business suit, almost universally constitutes a sandwich, a bag of peanuts, a Hostess Twinkie and like foods which are pre-packaged, or home-packaged easily in dry wrappers. Unfortunately, these dictates of the American Brown Bag Lunch habit are at that logger heads with simultaneous trends in the country toward healthy food and toward dietetic meals. Those foods ideally suited to those on weight loss diets, special health diets, or diets to accommodate individual health needs, often are not adapted to being carried in a brown bag, purse, suit pocket, or even a lunch box.
There have in the past been designed specialized insulated containers for fast foods and the like, and insulated plates for home use have been created, including those filled with hot water to longer preserve the warmth of the food. However, there has not been developed a convenient portable hot plate capable of completely segregating, and insulating, several portions of any type of food regardless of the temperature or wetness which the food must have in order to be edible.